The Nation's Peril. / Twelve Years' Experience in the South. Then and Now. The Ku Klux Klan, a Complete Exposition of the Order: Its Purpose, Plans, Operations, Social and Political Significance; The Nation's Salvation.

by Anonymous

Now, it is by ballot.

Then, there was no registry of voters.

Now, all electors are required to register before voting.

Then, “returning officers,” and those issuing commissions, were bound by the arithmetical results of the polls, and were required to give the commission or certificate of election to the person having the highest number of votes.

Now, there are boards of canvassers who are required not only to count the returns, but to pass upon questions of violence and fraud, and to exclude returns from precincts where they find the elections to have been controlled by such means.

Then, the basis of representation was property, or property and slaves, or slaves by enumerating three-fifths of all.

Now, it is all the inhabitants of the land.

Then, white male citizens, and, in some localities, property holders only, were eligible to office.

Now, all male citizens, save the few under disabilities by the Constitution of the United States, are eligible.

Coming down to a later period in the history of the country, from the time when the death of the lamented Lincoln had left the Republic in the hands of its worst enemies, to the presidential election in 1868, and what is the situation?